A comparison of school climate in selected secondary schools

Abstract:

The purpose of the study was to compare the school climate in three secondary schools whose personnel had gone through a formalized group planning process with the school climate in three secondary schools whose personnel had not participated in a formalized group planning process. The certificated staffs of the three secondary schools which had completed the formalized group planning process were identified as the intervention group. The certificated staffs of the three secondary schools which had not participated in the formalized group planning process were identified as the control group. The intervention group and control group were chosen on the basis of similar student populations.The certificated staffs of the six schools responded to the abridged Discipline Context Inventory. Data from the instrument provided an overall school climate score as well as scores for eight subfactors within school climate.Nine null hypotheses were formulated. The null hypothesis regarding overall school climate was tested using the Hotelling T2 statistic. Eight null hypotheses relating to each of the subfactors of the instrument were tested using a t-test statistic. All tests used the .05 level of significance. The null hypothesis for the overall school climate was rejected. There was a significant difference in overall school climate between the two groups. The control group had the higher overall school climate score. No significant difference existed between the two groups on five subfactors: problem-solving and decision-making; distribution of authority and status; student belongingness; curriculum and instructional practices; dealing with personal problems. The hypotheses for three subfactors were rejected. The control group scored significantly higher in the subfactor developing and implementing rules. The intervention group scored significantly higher in the subfactors relationships with parents and other community members and physical environment.